


Drives One Mad

by Checkerbox



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Jealousy, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship, rated for trevelyan's violent thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-14
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:27:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27001954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Checkerbox/pseuds/Checkerbox
Summary: When they could only be one thing to each other, when there was only one possibility that their interactions could lead to, it was easy to be confident about them. To watch Dorian’s swagger without feeling tempted by it. To give and take compliments while knowing neither of them were putting weight behind their words. Dorian was someone fun and interesting to listen to. That was all.--Only, now another possibility had presented itself.
Relationships: Male Inquisitor/Dorian Pavus
Kudos: 19





	Drives One Mad

It wasn’t that he hadn’t noticed before.

Because he did notice. Not only had he noticed, but he had commented on it.

Not only had he commented on it, but it had sort of become a thing between them.

Trevelyan would spend the better part of an afternoon picking through corpses for battle plans and valuables and all the while be composing a remark in his head. Then he would toss it Dorian’s way, hoping to throw him, and instead be caught clumsily batting back a second, unprepared compliment when he was easily and soundly countered.

_“Of course you have. That only takes eyes.”_

_“—I have those.”_

Dorian was just…so very lovely.

This thought, this acknowledgement of truth that Dorian was perhaps the most precious thing he had ever had the pleasure to be around, etched itself into him with every crack of thunder on the horizon. It came unbidden, without rhyme or reason, and all he could do was silently agree and watch from his spot at the wall, clutching his aching hand.

Caer Bronach was slick with blood and rain. Charter had wasted no time in sending scouts and soldiers to help clean up the place and outfit it with Inquisition personnel and heraldry, but the remains of the battle still lingered everywhere.

Dorian must have drained his entire reserves by the end of the fight with the Highwaymen’s chief. Trevelyan had seen him chugging potion after potion near the finale, conjuring up terrors that would have made lesser men’s eyes bleed. And yet now here he was, showing off as he openly defied and flirted with the laws of gravity to repair crumbling stone.

His entire figure was damp with the eternal misting that fell over them, but it just accentuated his form. His clothing was many-layered today but some of the upper levels of his robe were torn, and the lower levels clung to his body as though they were a second skin. Some of the Inquisition soldiers doing their own repair work had stopped to stare at this spectacle. One of them—a burly man with entirely too much chest showing--handed Dorian a waterskin of what must have been wine, and Dorian drunk it greedily, dark liquid trickling down his mouth to his bobbing throat.

Trevelyan swallowed.

Things didn’t used to be this way, until Redcliffe.

When they could only be one thing to each other, when there was only one possibility that their interactions could lead to, it was easy to be confident about them. To watch Dorian’s swagger without feeling tempted by it. To give and take compliments while knowing neither of them were putting weight behind their words. Dorian was someone fun and interesting to listen to. That was all.

\--Only, now another possibility had presented itself.

And Trevelyan was so very susceptible to obsessing over possibilities, once they reared their ugly heads.

He would stop—he _could_ stop, really. Only…obsessing was so very enjoyable. And Dorian was so undeniably lovely. And he said all sorts of nice things that made Trevelyan’s stomach flutter if those words caught him at the right time.

What was he saying to the soldiers?

They were just far enough away to keep him from making out the words exchanged between them. Just close enough that he could see the look on their faces when they spoke, the same look that always got exchanged when they ran across someone who noticed Dorian in a way that was not laced with prejudice about Tevinter.

Dorian had been sweeter to him, since Redcliffe.

It had almost snuck by him, so subtle the change had been at first. The artificiality had began to strip away from Dorian’s friendliness. Lingering with Trevelyan whenever he lagged behind the group, offering him heat spells in the cold, jibes and snark more affectionate than mocking.

Idly, Trevelyan rubbed a hand over his knuckles, remembering the morning that Dorian had seen them by accident and offered neither pity nor scorn but curiosity. What was it that he had said, precisely? _“—But scars are so very sexy. You should flaunt them.”_ It was tough talk from a man with such flawless and smooth skin of his own. But it had been…good to hear it. And it had made him fonder. Had made his smiles harder to tamp down whenever he saw Dorian across the courtyard.

He had to, though. He knew better.

Dorian had finished his wine, and was returning to his display of repair work. Lean muscles showed through his wet robes, taut and firm as he spun his staff. Light danced around him, sparks of blue and magenta and green. Dimly, Trevelyan could see Blackwall in the background, simply leaning on a half-finished canopy and watching with begrudging admiration.

“Show off!” came the playful call of the larger soldier.

Dorian flashed him a wicked smile.

Trevelyan felt it all the way down to his toes.

He wanted to launch an arrow between them, carefully aimed to lodge right in the other man’s bicep that he was currently offering like some cut of steak. Better yet, one arrow in each eye, so that he might never train them on Dorian with that _look._

It didn’t settle him. He frowned.

Knives, then?

\--No, no he wanted--

He wanted to push Dorian down against the cold stone, peel him open and take everything that made him charming and clever and warm, and keep it in his hands so that another person could never rub their grimy little paws all over it.

No, he wanted—

He wanted—

“You want him to laugh like that for _you_.” A voice, low and soft, almost right next to his ear with a suddenness that could have shattered glass. “ _I could watch you all day_ —you want him to mean it. Words and feelings echoing, fluttery, fleeting, but soothing and scorching. _Why do I shiver inside?_ ”

Trevelyan grunted, and pulled Cole’s hat down over his face.

“Now it’s dark,” he heard, muffled.

There was more magic, more witty repartee. He leaned over slightly, spoke to the spirit almost conspiratorially. “Don’t you think he looks like perfection incarnate?”

“His clothes are shiny,” Cole said with an enthusiastic nod.

A note of frustration entering his tone, Trevelyan continued, “I don’t usually— _feel this._ This thing in my chest. It’s very irritating. Very distracting. Can’t seem to stop, though.”

“You think about hurting. Others, but, also yourself. You keep poking it, making up things that dig and fester. Why?”

“Well, sometimes people really like hurting. Sometimes we need it, because we don’t feel it correctly. Sometimes it feels _really really good_.” He settled back against the wall. Dorian was making sparks fly with a mere twitch of his fingers, little light-shows that were child’s play compared to the great displays he was capable of. “Don’t ask me why. I don’t know. I always think I can get rid of it by recognizing I’m doing it, and it never works.”

Cole looked up, and Trevelyan could see the cold milkiness of his blue eyes. How did he see through those cataracts? “You could try talking, instead of killing,” he offered with his warbling voice. “That worked for me.”

Trevelyan rolled his eyes, albeit with a hint of smile in them. “I’m not _actually_ going to kill anyone. …On our side, I mean. –How did you even hear that, anyway? I thought that you couldn’t read me.”

“I said it’s hard.” Cole idly felt the edge of one of his knives, testing the sharpness. “Not impossible. The anchor is spent, and you are…being very loud.”

A sneer curled his lips. “Well. I will try to keep it down.”

“You should say it all out loud, instead of in your head. In your head it gets crowded and tangled and tears. But when you speak it, it’s out, unbound, unbroken, and you see it for what it is.”

Then there was no longer anyone standing to his right.

It was easy to just tell himself that Dorian was a fun and interesting person, and that he liked him. Easy to make it just that. But he--

He wanted to kiss him, rain-soaked bodies pressed together so closely that he could feel the thrumming of Dorian’s heartbeat beneath his chest. Wanted to hold him, squeeze him so tightly that he bruised and yet not so tightly that he wouldn’t hold Trevelyan back.

Then the object of his affection was suddenly walking in his direction,

Not a word to Dorian, he told himself, mentally clapping a hand over his mouth and wagging his finger back and forth. Not one word.

“That was quite the show you were putting on,” he blurted out, tugging on his fingers. “With you and…Burton, was it?”

Mentally, he slapped himself hard enough to make his teeth rattle.

“ _Watching me,_ were you, Inquisitor?” Dorian said, attempting to revitalize his mustache as it drooped from the damp. “Don’t tell me I’ve made you jealous of one of your own peons.”

Trevelyan breathed in deep, and then grinned so wide that one of his eyes twitched. “Furiously jealous. I’m composing murder ballads in my head right now.”

Dorian laughed so sweetly. “Come now. As if you need an excuse to write murder ballads, much less something so trifling.” Then the timbre of his voice changed. “–Maker, that one is well-sculpted, though, isn’t he? Something for me to think about later.”

“Really? I like them leaner.” He tried to give the comment completely neutrally, as though it was just an idle observation instead of a desperate plea for Dorian not to occupy his thoughts with the man.

Except that Dorian was looking at him fairly curiously now. “You do? I was under the impression that you fancied the fairer sex.”

“Sometimes.” A pause. “…I don’t recall saying I liked women _exclusively.”_

That seemed to startle him. “—No, no, I suppose you didn’t. You’ll have to pardon me, this isn’t the kind of thing that is discussed openly much in Tevinter. I’ve only met a handful of people who truly desire both. I didn’t realize you were one such person.”

Didn’t… _realize?_

Trevelyan felt a sudden rush of panic because _all this time_ _Dorian hadn’t known that anything was on the table._

“I’ve flirted with you!”

“People can do all sorts of flirting without meaning it.” Casual. Dismissive. “For fun, social niceties, etcetera. If _I_ planned to hop into bed with everyone I gave a stray remark to, well…I wouldn’t have any time to look dashing.”

Trevelyan’s lungs felt wet and heavy. “…Yes, that is true.”

If Dorian noticed, he made no indication of such. “My though, that is curious. I suppose that broadens up your selection for partners a bit, doesn’t it?”

“You would think so.” He shrugged “But they still have to like me first. …And not somehow convince themselves that I’m going to kill them.”

Dorian patted him on the shoulder sympathetically. “It’s the smile that does it.”

Trevelyan tilted his head to the side. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, that one.”

It was fine. They were talking—they were talking like always and suddenly all compulsion to dwell and sulk was gone, as though it had never been.

Perfectly fine. Temporary madness. Perhaps this was what Cole had meant.

Someone called for the “Vint” to rejoin them, and Dorian turned.

“Ah. Duty calls, it seems,” he said, cheeky grin returning.

“Your adoring public,” Trevelyan teased, tamping down the desire to howl and kill every last one of them.

“Well, if you are so averse to taking up the spotlight, _someone_ has to.” When Dorian turned to wink—when _he turned_ , it was to display the side of his face with the beauty mark, drawing Trevelyan’s gaze to that eye like an arrow. “Feel free to continue watching, Inquisitor.”

He laughed. High, jittery, nervous.

This man had done something to him. He wasn’t… _entirely_ sure he liked it.

But he would certainly continue watching.

**Author's Note:**

> Fun fact! This was a short that ultimately resulted in my other fic “The Definition of Suffering”. I wanted to do something about Trevelyan being heart-rendingly jealous and pining, but the “canon” relationship I set up in my head for him and Dorian didn’t really work with that. I rewrote this one-shot maybe like five different times before realizing it wasn’t giving me the particular flavor of angst I wanted.
> 
> Going over it again now though, it’s not so bad. My current long fic is so involved I need a bit of a breather, so I spliced together a few different versions of it and decided maybe I could put it on here.
> 
> I was never intending to post it originally, so I cannibalized bits and pieces that I liked to use elsewhere. As such, you may have found a sentence or two you recognize from another fic of mine. Terribly sorry.


End file.
